The woman’s look made Ellie feel as though she’d asked her to explain what a car or a television was. Ellie felt as though she should know what “rewriting the past” meant. She had an impulse to grab a yellow pages and show the woman that she was the only person in there under “Past, Rewriting of.”
But Ellie wasn’t about to miss out on hearing a story, so she bit down on the side of her tongue to keep her remarks to herself and gave the woman a look of regret, No, sorry, but she didn’t know what it meant to rewrite the past.
When Madame Zoya seemed satisfied that not one of the three knew what she could do, she spilled out words so quickly that they could hardly keep up with them. “I can send you back for three weeks, that’s all. You, of course, will choose when and where you want to go. At the end of the time you will return here and not one second will have passed. You will then be given some choices. You may keep your lives as they are now, or you can go with the new future you’ve created. However, I must warn you that going with the new future carries risks of the unknown. In this life you could have escaped accidents and deaths of loved ones, but who knows what will happen in the new one? I had one man who chose the new future, then his arm fell off. Well, not really fell. It was more that it disappeared. One minute his arm was there; then the next it wasn’t. In his old life he hadn’t been at the place where the accident occurred in his new life, so he hadn’t had the accident that removed his arm. But that’s the risk you take. So, now, any more questions?”
Leslie and Madison stood there blinking at the woman, not fully comprehending what she’d just said. But Ellie was used to following stories, and when she talked to her editor about a new story idea, they talked in the shorthand style that this woman was now using. “So if they stay with what they have now, will they remember the new time, the way they didn’t go? And do they take back current knowledge with them to the past?” Ellie fired off at her.
“Your decision,” Madame Zoya said. “Remember or forget, as you wish. And, yes, you return with everything you know now. You can be eighteen with a woman’s knowledge of the world. A lot of women choose that path.”
Madison hadn’t fully understood all that had been said, but she knew the word “forget.” “I’d like to forget everything that’s happened to me since the day the three of us met,” she said under her breath.
Madame Zoya heard her. “Your choice. So what do you want to do? Any of you? All of you? None?”
“How much does this cost?” Ellie asked. She was her own agent, so she had no qualms about discussing money with anyone.
“One hundred dollars.”
The three women blinked, with Leslie recovering first. “You mean that you’ll send us back to the past for a mere one hundred dollars?”
Madame Zoya’s eyes sparkled in merriment as she looked directly at Madison. “Didn’t hear that on The Learning Channel, did you, dear? That show was all about money, wasn’t it?”
Madison gave the woman a weak smile, then looked away, embarrassed. Did she have an intercom on her porch so she could snoop into everyone’s private conversations?
“What the heck?” Ellie said as she reached into her handbag for her wallet. “This is my treat. Even if it doesn’t work—” With her back to Madame Zoya, she wiggled her eyebrows at Leslie and Madison, letting them know that she was sure the whole thing was a joke. “—I can write off the expense as research.” Turning back, she handed three one-hundred-dollar bills to Madame Zoya.
Smiling, the woman took the money, slipped it into the pocket of her lavender print dress, then motioned toward a hallway past the dining room. “My office is this way,” she said. “Follow me.”
“Everyone’s arms on tight?” Ellie whispered to Le
slie and Madison, sounding as though they were about to get on a dangerous roller coaster.
Madame Zoya led them to a small room at a back corner of the house. There were windows on two sides and a view into a deeply shaded part of the garden. Thick vines hung over a tall fence; trees drooped down above them. There wasn’t a flower in sight, not a bit of color to break the dark green.
The only objects in the room were three identical chairs—Queen Anne, upholstered in dark green, facing the windows—and on the floor, a large, lush rug patterned with entwined leaves. The walls were painted a somber golden yellow, without a picture on them.
All in all, it was a soothing room, and the three chairs made it seem almost as though the three woman had been expected.
Ellie tried to lighten the mood by making a joke. “What if only two of us had accepted?” she asked, smiling. “Would you have run ahead and removed a chair?”
Madame Zoya didn’t smile. “I choose my prospective clients well. I knew that all three of you needed me.”
At that, Madison almost turned around and left the room, but Ellie and Leslie caught her arms and pulled her back to them; then they led her to the middle chair and half pushed her onto it.
“Does this hurt?” Madison asked.
“No, of course not,” Madame Zoya said. “The only pain is what you experience in life. I will cause you no pain at all. Now, each of you must tell me where you want to go.”
“You mean in time?” Ellie said.
Madame Zoya, standing in front of them, looked at her as though she weren’t too bright. “Of course I mean in time. I’m not a bus service, now am I?” At that Madame Zoya laughed as though she’d made a wonderful joke. She didn’t seem to notice, and certainly didn’t mind, that the three women didn’t share her laugh. “Oh! There’s one requirement that I forgot to tell you about.”
At that, Madison gave Leslie and Ellie an I-told-you-so look.
“I want to take your pictures. I keep a scrapbook of all my clients before and after. It helps me to remember.”
“Could we see your scrapbook?” Ellie asked instantly.
“You’re the writer, aren’t you, dear?” Madame Zoya said, smiling. “You can always tell writers. They’re always trying to turn every word into pages, which of course turns into money for them, doesn’t it?”